She loves me. Her body craves my touch, but she’s still so incredibly insecure. All I can do is hope she knows I’m all hers.
“Don’t hurt me,” she whispers, wiggling her hand out of my grasp to drop the card into Ryder’s waiting palm.
“Never again,” I say, pulling her into me as a weight I didn’t realize was there lifts from my shoulders.
???
It’d be way too fucking easy if we could just pop the card into the laptop and access the evidence at the touch of a button.
And since nothing about this has been easy since the start, I’m not surprised when Ryder swears under his breath.
“It’s encrypted,” he adds, his fingers ramming the keyboard faster and faster.
Of course it is.
“You’d think Alex was some high-end hacker with how well this shit is hidden.”
“Can you access it?” Koby asks, gripping the driver’s seat headrest to pull himself in so he can see better as Broadway exits the dirt road out of Lakeside.
“Of course I can fucking access it... I just wouldn’t want to risk doing it on the road. We need a stable, secure connection and if this...” He taps at something on the screen, “...is what Ithink it is, I’ll need more equipment.” He meets my eyes in the rearview mirror. “The gear I keep at your loft.”
“Fuck, Chicagoagain?” Koby asks.
“We can set up camp at a hotel somewhere, but in the time it takes to secure the connection, we’d be halfway to Chicago anyway.”
Broadway glares at me in the rearview mirror. “I take back everything I said about the safe house being boring. I want boring-ass bliss and noon wake-up calls again.”
He keeps whining most of the drive back. That’selevenhours of Broadway at full volume.
Hailey’s mostly silent beside me, staring out the window at the falling snow. I’d like to say she’s calm, but that’d be a lie. She’s miles away, lost in her thoughts, not done digging up her past. There are still too many question marks floating around and if I know one thing about Hailey, it’s that she’s determined. She won’t stop hunting out triggers until she knows exactly what happened the night of her accident.
By the time we arrive in Chicago it’s almost midnight and my head’s pounding. I don’t usually let my men chauffeur me around. My Corvette rarely gets a day off. I miss the feel of leather under my fingers and the growl of the engine when I squeeze the gas pedal... but taking the wheel means distance from Hailey and I’ve not had my fill of her yet.
Bad fucking drug.
Perfect high.
I can’t stop touching her. Even if it’s just my fingers tangling her hair or my lips grazing her temple. It’s enough. It’s everything and it’s fucking disturbing.
Within minutes of entering my loft, my kitchen island is littered with hardware I can’t even name. Ryder’s in full work-mode, hyper-focused as he connects cables, sets up equipment, and taps at his keyboard.
“What happens now?” Hailey asks, getting comfortable on the couch. She looks perfect in my space.Ourspace. “How long will it take to access the files?”
“Given the level of encryption, I’d say a few hours at least,” Ryder says, eyes jumping between the screens of two laptops. “Koby, you remember how to check the network is still bulletproof? It’s been a while since I set it up.”
“Yeah, I’m on it.” He slides onto a bar stool beside Ryder, tapping away.
“Once you know what’s on the card...” Hailey looks at me. “What then?”
“Then I meet my father.”
Her eyes widen a little. “You’ll give him the evidence?”
“A copy. He needs to reassure his acquaintances and stop the wild goose chase. And I need a copy to make sure that, from now on, Rhett stays in line.”
Broadway smirks under his nose, glancing at me from where he’s watching Ryder work. “Somehow I don’t think Rhett will be happy taking orders from you.”
“I don’t suppose he will, but he won’t have a choice. It’s time for a regime change in Ohio, don’t you think?”
